The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 135

The Child They Stole 

HANNAH’S POV: 

“No,” I said, my voice rising. “No, that’s not true. You’re lying. This is just another sick game you’re playing. You don’t have to make up stories. You can just say I was difficult when you gave birth to me, or that I broke something valuable, or that I reminded you of someone you hated. But that? That isn’t true. It can’t be true.” 

Janet laughed softly, a sound that made my skin crawl. She looked at me with mock pity. “Oh, but it is very true, Hannah. Every single word.” 

My mother continued as though she were reciting something she’d memorized long ago, something she’d rehearsed in her mind a thousand times. 

“Twenty-four years ago,” she began, her voice steady and detached, “your real parents were involved in a fatal car accident. A terrible, violent crash. We were driving behind them when it happened. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes.” 

My ears started ringing as she spoke. The room felt like it was tilting. 

“The car flipped multiple times before finally stopping,” she went on, like she was describing the weather. “Both of your parents died on impact. But there was a baby in the back seat. Somehow, miraculously, that baby survived.” 

My heart slammed violently against my ribs, so hard it hurt. 

“You were alive,” she said simply. “Crying and covered in broken glass but breathing. The ambulance hadn’t arrived yet. We were the first ones there.” 

She paused, and I saw something flicker across her face but it was not sadness. 

“We had been trying for a baby for years,” she continued. “Years of disappointment. Failed attempts. The doctors told us we might never have children naturally. And then there you were. A gift from the universe, we thought.” 

I was shaking now, trembling so violently the chair beneath me rattled. 

“So we took you,” she said, so casually it made me want to scream. “We took you before help arrived. Before anyone could identify you. We took you and we left.” 

My mother’s expression darkened, her features hardening. “Janet came to us two to three years later. A miracle, the doctors called it. Our own flesh and blood. Our actual daughter.” 

She said ‘actual daughter’ like it was a weapon, like those words were meant to cut me. 

“And suddenly,” she continued, “you became a reminder. A living, breathing reminder of the lie we had to live with every single day. Every time I looked at you, I saw that crash. I saw what we’d done. I saw the risk we’d taken. 

Tears slid silently down my cheeks as the truth rearranged every single memory I had ever lived. Every painful moment. Every time I’d wondered why I wasn’t enough. Every night I’d cried myself to sleep wondering what was wrong with me. 

“You treated me like a burden,” I said shakily. “Like I was worth nothing. Like I didn’t deserve basic human kindness.” 

“Because you weren’t ours!” Janet snapped, her voice rising. “Are you not hearing correctly? You were just a leftover mistake they couldn’t get rid of without raising suspicion.”